Category > Writing

Today we have a guest post by Sonia Orin Lyris, the author of The Seer. Be sure to check out her biography at the end of the post! Dear reader: how do you like your story prepared? Roasted? Grilled? Lightly poached in white wine with thyme? Do you prefer farm-raised or wild-caught? We writers with […]

I’m a list maker, goal setter, spreadsheet user and check-off-the-boxes type of person. My latest addiction is Habitica, a free habit building and productivity app that treats your real life like a game. (If that sounds awesome to you, see the note at the end of the post). I assumed because of these traits, the […]

I invited Winnipeg writer Chadwick Ginther, author of the Thunder Road Trilogy to guest blog for us and he came up with some great advice for capturing your setting, even if it’s not in your own city. Be sure to check out his bio at the end of the post. ****** Establishing setting is one […]

by Mike Buckley A few years ago, a student of mine asked me to read a novel that she had just finished. I agreed. What I knew about my student at the time (Deidre is her name) was that she was a librarian who specialized in collections from the late eighteen hundreds. She struck me […]

We tend to have tunnel vision, seeing only the things directly in front of us. As authors, though, I feel like it’s kind of our duty to break free of that comfort zone and take in everything we can. When we put pen to paper and tell a story, it should be to tell stories […]

Twin Peaks is a sprawling saga of the weird, the dark, and the wonderful. It smashes teen angst and small town politics up against a spiked wall of supernatural evil and serves it up with a strange sense of humor that even today makes me laugh. Despite its short run and disastrous ending, it stands as […]

Fran Wilde is a longtime friend of the Inkpunks and a fellow fountain pen junkie. And she also writes cool books about a kickass mom! Needless to say, it’s a delight to have her here on the blog. Sketchpunks Last August, I stood in a corner of Westminster Abbey — near Newton’s grave — while […]

I am obsessed with Fury Road. My brain keeps returning to small moments of it, revisiting images I liked, chuckling over clever lines. (I can’t stop saying “Oh, what a day! What a lovely day!”) And to feed my obsession, I can not stop reading articles and blog posts and reviews about the movie. One that […]

A few years ago, I went to the Rainforest Writers Retreat and started a novel. I’d been thinking about the book for a year or so, and I knew Lake Quinault would be the perfect backdrop for writing it. I got up early, drank a lot of coffee, stared out at the lake or sat […]

We’ve all been there, staring at a page, thoughts tying themselves in knots as we try to figure out what comes next in the story—or how to even start it in the first place. When it comes to making progress in our writing, we often hear the adage, “Apply butt to chair and just write.” […]